


Home is such a lonely place

by Mary_Rhapsodos



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Depression, Emotionally Hurt Prompto, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mentioned Ardyn, Mentioned Gladio Amicitia, Mentioned Ignis Scientia, Mentioned Iris Amicitia, Post-Canon, Sad, So many sad memories, Songfic, Spoilers, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9291893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_Rhapsodos/pseuds/Mary_Rhapsodos
Summary: Set after the Final Fantasy XV main story.Five years after Noctis has given his life to save Eos, Prompto has given up on photography and talking to his old friends. His flat in Lestallum just does not feel like home. Nowhere does anymore.A small fic about how Prompto might fare after losing his best friend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> After finishing the game, I cried straight through the ending, the credits, the post-credits ending, the new song, the new starting screen, and right into my bed. This whole game has touched my heart in way that I both hated and loved. I'm totally opposed to the idea that its ending was anything but cruel and heartless and I think Square Enix employs people that were tasked to make this game as tragic and sad as humanly possible.  
> That being said, I'm currently writing a story that exploded in my face with its vastness, hence this little ficlet to get me in the mood to start the other monster.
> 
> It's sad, it's depressing, it's basically my feelings in a nutshell after finishing the game. I think, Prompto was devastated after losing Noctis, but since we never see beyond Noct's POV we would not know. 
> 
> I hope there's still somebody out there who likes this story. Well not likes... but I loved FFXV, even though it was a pure heartbreak. Gotta love our masochistic streaks.
> 
> Please keep in mind, that I'm no native English speaker and, since I'm German, I am known to be quite excessive with my use of commas. This work is totally, utterly unbeta'd because I wrote it instead of just going to sleep and wanted to post it before I lose my nerve and delete it from my computer. If you find any mistakes, do not hesitate to tell me, so I can correct them. Also, this is my first story for this fandom and on AO3. I haven't been writing for quite some time and I fear I'm a little rusty. Have fun anyway, everybody.

*

_We're falling faster than we can fly_  
_Forgotten seconds out on Sunset Drive_  
_And I hold on tight_  
_But not enough to hold you back_  
  
_It feels like the moon_  
_Is spinning off into outer space without you_  
_This room is such a lonely place without you_

*

Blink 182 – Home is such a lonely place

 

The lock echoed loudly into the vast space of his flat, when Prompto closed the door behind him. It had been late evening, when he had reached Lestallum. Now, after turning in some beast hunts and doing some last-minute shopping, dusk had fallen over the lands. By no means did the darkness of night still mean the same doom and fear as before, but it still gave the blonde the chills being outside after nightfall, even after all this time.

The groceries lay forgotten in the kitchen, while he stared mindlessly out of the living room window. It was snowing. A rare occasion in Lestallum, where the sun burned hot in summer and the air rarely cooled enough for ice or snow. It was an unexpectedly cold winter. The skies had been shrouded in gloomy greys all day, never once opening up and letting some sunshine through. As the snow fell, Prompto felt that a day without sunshine was a small price to pay for such a view. His fingers instinctively itched for his camera, his mind already imagining the perfect setup, and lightning, and angle, the perfect vantage point, and lens, and… He swallowed, blinking rapidly to dissipate the feeling of tightness that had built behind his eyeballs and deep inside his chest.

Prompto did not take pictures anymore, not ever since that fateful day five years ago. He had developed all the pictures, only to put them neatly into a box that, alongside his camera, lenses, and other equipment, was now hidden away in the very back of his bedroom wardrobe, behind his clothes, shoes, blankets, and spare jackets. He had tried the same with the memories in his head. It worked; he got by, took some jobs, travelled around, visited old friends and made new ones. He had even gotten a flat in Lestallum, mostly because Iris had been insisting rather vigorously. “You need a place to come home to.” she had said, “A place to give you refuge from your travels.”

He had followed her advice, had rented a small flat near Lestallum’s main road, top floor, with a great view of the Disk of Cauthess from the living room and bedroom windows. Those shutters were always closed, even when he was home, which did not happen all that regularly. At least Iris seemed a little more content now and if it put her mind at ease, he would do much more than just this.

Prompto turned away from the window and drew the shutters. Darkness fell over the entire flat and it made his heart clench and race and his brow sweat like he was thrown fifteen years back in time, back to Gralea and to Ardyn and to torture, but also to Noctis and Gladio and Ignis. The thoughts only made his heart clench even harder.

Three quick strides carried him through the room and he hit the switch with more force than intended. The light flickered on, chasing away the darkness into the corners of his room and mind. Prompto could suddenly breathe easier again and a shiver of gratitude and relief slowly trickled down his back. All of this was so familiar, never once changing throughout the last five years, even the ten years before that, yet it still overwhelmed him like a bucket of ice cold water over the head. How much he missed it all: his photography, the road trips, the easy chatter, the carelessness, the wind in his hair, the smell of Ignis’s cooking, the banter with Gladio, sleeping on the ground in a too small tent, fighting and winning with those fights, chocobo riding, Noct’s voice, Noct’s laughter, Noct’s relaxed face when he slept or his pouty one when things did not go his way. He missed his friends, the best and the worst of them and while he could still visit Ignis and Gladio in Insomnia if he wanted, he never did. It was simply not the same.

Noctis had been the glue to keep them together and Prompto still remembered the look of astonishment on the other’s face when he noticed that in the very end, after ten years of absence in Gods knew where, after ten years of believing him gone or dead or worse. Prompto had seen enough sorrow and gruesome horror to last a lifetime. The sight of Ravus Nox Fleuret’s twisted body and anguished cries still gave him nightmares.

When Noctis had disappeared into the Crystal fifteen years ago, the group had all but crumbled as had the world around them. He had been in a bad place throughout those ten years, a place so black and dark it rivalled daemon-infested, desparing Eos. And when he had returned… Prompto had _hoped_ for the first time in a whole decade, had hoped all would be well because Noctis had done the unthinkable. He had come back, older and more serious, a little weary, but still Noctis. The blonde had held on to that hope, the hope of a happily ever after, until the end, until they reached the Citadel and the throne room, until Noctis had asked for his pictures and he had not understood what it meant. Now, he saw it clearly, saw the signs, and noticed that there had never been any hope, it had all been wishful thinking. His own naïve mind tricking him into holding on to something that could and would never happen. Because the world was a cruel place, because there was no saving the world without sacrificing your own damn life, because Noctis’s legacy could be nothing but cruel and heart-breaking and sad.

The soft sound of falling drops of water broke his reverie and Prompto blinked. His eyes, his head, and his throat hurt. He breathed in deeply and his breathing hitched several times, a broken rasp and shuddery sigh. In and out like he had done so often before. He had cried enough to last a lifetime as well, had even thought that there were no tears left to spill over fading memories of laughter and smiles and happiness and carelessness. There were, apparently. Perhaps there would always be.

Brushing the tears away with the sleeves of his shirt, Prompto left the living room and headed for the kitchen to put away the groceries that were still sitting on the kitchen table.

All was deadly silent. The only sounds in the flat were his own rummaging through the fridge and freezers, the low hum of the electronics, and the wind that rattled the shutters fiercly. He idly wondered how much snow would still be left tomorrow. He was keen to leave Lestallum fast again, as he already felt the weight of its memories haunting and torturing him. Perhaps he could accept some bounty further north near the Vesperpool. Or further south. Or east or west, he did not care. Just something to take his mind off… this. This flat, this city, this region, this weather, this life, this whole goddamn existence.

His fist hit the closed fridge hard, pain radiating from his knuckles to his fingers and to his whole right arm. It was so unfair. How could the Gods call themselves gods if they needed Noctis to sacrifice himself for them? How come they needed him to die so the Starscourge, the illness they had created, could be defeated? Why him?

Prompto had grown bitter and resentful of every little thing related to prophecies or the Six, the true king or fairy tale stories of how heroically he had saved Eos. There was nothing bright, beautiful, or heroic about Noctis’s story. The months between the fall of Insomnia and their travels to Gralea, as well as the liberation of the capital and the defeat of Ardyn ten years later, had been laced with death, loss, tears, and tragedy. They had laughed, joked, bantered to forget the weight upon their shoulders, especially Noct’s. They had always been looking back, back to the time when the king had seen them off on a road trip to find Noctis’s fiancée and childhood friend Lunafreya. It had been supposed to be an adventure, just them on the road, just bros travelling the continent to marry their prince off in the name of peace.

Prompto saw now that it had never been Noctis’s choice, nothing at all. Everything had been dumped onto him: his fate as the King of Kings, his legacy as a prince of Lucis, his marriage to Lunafreya as an attempt to bring peace where it was doomed to wither. It was easy to utter empty words such as duty or honour or destiny in the face of a young soul that knew nothing else. No one should be forced to meet all those expectations, yet somehow Noctis had. He had taken all those things, and while he had struggled, he had managed them. He had played his part, done his duty, protected the planet, only to give his life and never get to see the happy ending.

Nothing hurt Prompto more than the memories of the last moment they had all shared. The bonfire was still burning brightly behind his closed lids, every night, like a song on replay. He still felt its warmth, even though the situation made him feel cold like Shiva’s breath. Noctis being himself, bad at expressing what was important to him, lost for words and something to hang on to because there was nothing he could say or do to make any of them feel better.

“You are the best.”

The words still lingered, still stabbed, still hurt. Like fresh salt in a festering, deep wound. They were nothing compared to Noctis, who had sacrificed everything for a world that had given him nothing but sorrow. From the death of his mother, the invasion of Tenebrae, to the death of his father, his fiancé Lunafreya in front of his very own eyes, and to his struggle against Ardyn.

Prompto unclenched his aching fists and relaxed his cramped jaw. This was why he did not return to Lestallum more often than he did now. It made him think, where hunting and travelling and danger made him forget. Iris worried he was working himself to death if he did not return, Prompto was more worried that he was _thinking_ himself to death if he did. His mind had never been the safest place given all the horrors of his childhood. Now, it was simply a minefield, waiting to explode right into his face in a colourful burst of memories that hurt so endlessly deep because they reminded him of how he was still here and Noctis was not.

Since he was gone, Prompto felt like his heart and soul had been shot to a million little pieces and blown away by a harsh breeze. Nothing sat right with him anymore. The cities were too crowded but his flat too empty, he longed for company but shied from it, he hated killing but enjoyed it when it made him forget.

When he had come to Insomnia as a refugee all those years ago, he had felt a similar ache. A vacant place in his heart that needed to be filled. The house, where he had stayed, had never felt like home, but that was what he had longed for most. After meeting Noctis, and through him Gladio and Ignis, that yawning void had slowly been closed by good memories, by emotions and little nothings that had meant the world to him. By taking him in and accepting him, putting up with his insecurities and mess ups, they had rescued Prompto from himself and he knew, he appreciated. He always felt like he had never expressed that adequately because he was bad with words.

Now that Noctis was gone, gone for good, the flat, where he stayed, never felt like the hotel rooms or campsites of fifteen years ago. He had lost his home once again and he was reeling from the thought that there was no way to ever get it back. This home, this whole universe felt like such a lonely place, when he could not share it with Noctis. But Prompto was used to loneliness. He had just forgotten that he was. He had lived a dream, wondrous and full of hopes and kindness, and when he had been forced to wake up, he longed to live it again, longed for another moment shared between friends around a bonfire in the dead of the night, pretending there was nothing but this moment right here. He just wished he had known when he had lived it and could have experienced it more, longer, drawn it out and captured every tiny moment of it. It was not possible, however. The world was saved and kept on turning. People came and went, legends were born and died, history was written, life continued. And Prompto went along: he ate, he slept, he hunted, he earned money and payed the rent, he socialised sometimes, he watched the sun rise and set, he looked at old pictures and cried.

And he would do so until there was nothing left to push him forth, until the end of his days. Because he owed Noctis like he owed nobody else. And if not for him, he had not survived this world as long as he had done. He lived this life for Noctis as well now because he could only watch from the sidelines. Prompto just hoped he had found his peace for if anybody deserved it, it was the King of Kings, the hero of their story.

**Author's Note:**

> Any thoughts on this are appreciated!


End file.
